Abstract

The numerical modeling of historic buildings is an essential tool for understanding the structural behavior, even more whit the aim is to assume an analysis for conservation and / or rehabilitation. At present time, most building’s numerical simulation software is divided into three parts: the preprocessor, which prepares all the necessary information (geometry, boundary conditions, loads, etc.), the Analysis, where all calculations take place (FEM) and the postprocessing where decisions are taking based on the analysis of the results obtained in the previous steps (Muñoz, Maristany 1999). At that last point is, where the user of the computer programs usually find limitations in the graphical interpretation of the results. Some numerical results with endless list of numbers are not the best way to address the problem and its graphical output is not yet fully developed. That is, graphic interface is still very basic, let alone a real-time dynamic visualization in 3D. It`s important to have both powerful hardware and software tools to visualize the obtained results. Currently, there are emerging many structural analysis programs that have highly advanced postprocessing, but they still display limitations in space, they operate only on 2 or 3 dimensions with space constraints. For this reason, this paper seeks to integrate different current computer programs with 3D graphical representation. Thus, the visualization of numerical results (tension, stress and strain values) can be much more interesting. This is to enable users to virtually navigate in real time, through any 3D structure and better understand their behavior. In short, this research aims to develop an interface between the computer programs of structural calculations and representation software with virtual 3D graphics (vrml- virtual reality modeling language), with practical application to historic buildings. As a closure for the paper we develop a practical example based on Mexico City’s Cathedral tabernacle.